Cross cultural communication formulaicity

The Pragmatics of Cross-Cultural Communication

6. Formulaicity1

Levels of Communication Differences

By Mr. Sunan Fathet

Parts of formulaic language

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proverbsParts of

FormulaicLanguage

collocationsidioms

turns of phrase

preferred ways of saying thingsrhymes and songs

routines

set phrases

Formulaicity: By Mr. Sunan Fathet

(Wray, 2000, cited in Cardiff University, n.d.)

Noticing formulaic language in:

3Formulaicity: By Mr. Sunan Fathet

structured events such as weather forecasts

2. Strategythe materials in foreign language textbooks, especially for beginners, and in phrasebooks

the language of very young children

the speech of people with acquired language disabilities such as aphasia

the materials in foreign language textbooks, especially for beginners, and in phrasebooks

ritualized events (ceremony)

(Wray, 2000, cited in Cardiff University, n.d.)

(Wray, 2002, p.9)

A sequence, continuous or discontinuous, of words or other meaning elements, which is, or appears to be, prefabricated: that is, stored and retrieved whole from memory at the time of use, rather than being subject to generation or analysis by the language grammar.

Formulaicity Definition

(Oxford dictionaries, 2012)

Formulaic (adj.): constituting or containing a verbal formula or set form of words: a formulaic greeting, formulaic expressions such as ‘Once upon a time’- produced in accordance with a slavishly followed rule or style; predictable: much romantic fiction is stylized, formulaic, and unrealistic

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The eleven criteria for identification of formulaic sequences

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Semantic opacity

Situation/ register specificity

Pragmatic function

Idiolect

Performance indication

Grammatical indication

Previous encounter

Derivation

Inappropriate application

Mismatch with maturation

Grammatical irregularity

(Wray and Namba, 2003, cited in Namba, n.d.)

1. Grammatical irregularity


‘rain cats and dogs’The intransitive verb ‘rain’ doesn’t take any object NP and

the NP ‘cats and dogs’ is not employed as an adverb.

‘if I were you’contains the subjunctive form ‘were’ which many people no longer produce in novel constructions but only use in

this wordstring.

2. Semantic opacity


‘kick the bucket’

The meaning of the whole wordstring, i.e. ‘to die’ cannot be derived from the sum of the meaning of its individual parts.

‘spill the beans’

It means ‘tell a secret’ and it is possible to map ‘spill’ onto ‘tell’ and ‘beans’ onto ‘secret’

‘like a fish out of water’

the speaker is not talking about a fish or water.

‘very funny’can express the opposite of its literal meaning,

when the situation indicates that the speaker is talking about something not funny at all.

2. Semantic opacity (cont.)


‘kick the bucket’

‘spill the beans’

‘like a fish out of water’

‘very funny’

“opaque metaphor” (Moon, 1998, p.23, cited in Namba, n.d.) where the meaning is unintelligible without “general or etymological knowledge” (Wray, 2002, p.57, cited in Namba, n.d.)

It looks fairly non-compositional but the meaning is intelligible with general knowledge.

When a wordstring has a literal meaning, it can have “a secondary, layer of pragmatic meaning”. (Wray, 2002, p.58, cited in Namba, n.d.)

3. Situation/ register specificity


‘Happy birthday!’

It is said on a specific day

sensei ‘teacher’In Japanese schools, when students address their teacher in class

they say sensei ‘teacher’ rather than each teacher’s name.

4. Pragmatic function


‘kid’s stuff’

‘evaluative’ conveying speaker’s evaluation and attitude

‘you know what I mean’

‘modalizing’ conveying truth values, advice, requests

‘I’ll tell you what’ This wordstring functions as a turn claimer in

conversation to manage the flow of the discourse.

‘on the other hand’ Discourse markers are archetypal models which fit this

criterion.

5. Idiolect


‘Happy birthday!’

‘many happy returns’

‘congratulations’

Even without evidence, one can assume that this wordstring is learned as a whole from other people, probably family members, and the speaker will always use this form or another with a similar formulaic status.

6. Performance indication


Sensei ohayo-gozai-masu minasan oyaho-gozai-masu

‘good morning teacher, good morning everybody’

Repetition of what the speaker has just heard, prosodic patterns, i.e. intonation and rhythm.

Some socio-interactional routines are expressed with an action.

‘pick-you-own vegetables’ There are orthographical cues to formulaic sequences,

such as hyphenation.

7. Grammatical indication


‘spin dry’ shows itsformulaicity in thepassive and pastforms

They don’t appear as *‘this shouldn’t be spun dry’ (which means it was spun in order to dry it, but not in a spin drier) and *‘I spun it dry’.

‘I spin dried it’.

‘this shouldn’t be spin dried’

8. Previous encounter


Formulaic sequences in child language according to the way they are acquired. They heard from other

people’s speech.

“Look I did it all by yourself”

A boy has heard the wordstring ‘all by yourself’ in

his mother’s speech, i.e. “Good boy! You did it all by yourself!”. The fact that he keeps using ‘yourself’

instead of ‘myself’

9. Derivation


‘kill two birds with one stone’

It is commonly observed that people change ‘two’ into

‘three’ or other numbers such as kill five birds with one stone.

Idiom

More Examples


‘peeling banana into mouth’

‘piece of cake’ It’s easy.

‘come before the chicken’

To arrive very early in the morning

‘tree closes to the shore’

One foot in the grave

Thai Idioms

‘to teach a crocodile to swim’

‘Bring coals to Newcastle’ to perform a useless task

ReferencesCardiff University. (n.d.). What is formulaic language?.

Retrieved September 3, 2012, from http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/encap/research/networks/flarn/ whatis/index.html

Namba, K. (n.d.). Formulaicity in Code-Switching: Theory. Retrieved September 3, 2012, from

http://www.senri.ed.jp/site/attachments/ 172_06KNamba12.pdfWray, A. (2002). Formulaic language and the lexicon. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

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Formulaicity: By Mr. Sunan Fathet

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Cross cultural communication formulaicity